Framework

The Getting Started page explains in a minimal way what are the commands to use in order to run the demonstration attack provided. By following these, you can ensure that all the dependencies are properly installed before starting implementing your own.

In this section, we give more details on the challenge's python-based framework to develop and evaluate attacks, available on github. The following sections try to guide a candidate through the implementation of a new submission. However, not all the details are covered , and we invite the reader to refer to the documentation found directly in the code for further explanation.

Next, we assume that the attack is written in python, but the framework may also work with other languages (see Beyond Python).

Contents

The framework is split in two parts:

• The code running the attack, given as a demonstration attack (demo_submission directory). This includes:
  • Loading the datasets.
  • Simulating internal states of the circuit.
  • Running a optional profiling step.
  • Executing the attack in itself.
  • Running a simplified evaluation for testing/developing purpose.
• The scripts (scripts directory) for
  • building a submission package,
  • checking that is it well-structured,
  • evaluating it.

Dependencies

The main dependencies for the framework are given in Getting Started.

Additionally, the fully reproducible submission evaluation depends on Apptainer (optional, see Submission).

Usage

Running attacks

There are multiple ways to an attack in the framework, that vary in their ease of use, performance overheads and portability.

Quick eval Using the quick_eval.py python script in the submission is the easiest. It also has minimal overhead, and it is therefore ideal for developping an attack. See Getting Started for usage instructions.

Test submission Since quick_eval.py is tightly integrated to a submission, it is easy to use and modify, but this tight integration is not always wanted: when evaluating a submission that is not our own, we would like a more standard interface. This is what the scripts/test_submission.py script provides. It has multiple modes (attack in directory or zip file, native or containerized exeuction). This shoud be mostly useful to validate your submission package. See Submission for usage instructions.

Implementing attacks

The implementation of an attack lies inside two python functions.

• The profiling function (optional), see Profiling.
• The attack function, see Attack.

Do you need more flexibility? You can change anything in the demo_submission directory, as long as the command-line interface remains the same. See also Beyond Python.

Submitting attacks

Once your attack works with quick_eval.py, see Submission for a step-by-step list on how to send it to the evaluation server.